Hurt
by beege
Summary: After a failed Third Impact a distraught Shinji who has been abandoned by almost everyone he cares about makes a terribly misguided decision concerning Misato, with tragic consequences. Rated for concepts, language.
1. Hurt

Hurt

I hurt all over.  Not for the obvious reasons, though those wounds are causing me their fair share of pain too.

Oh God . . .

Shinji . . .

What happened to Shinji?

With a low miserable moan I try to sit up, even as various parts of my body inform me that this isn't going to be happening for a while yet.  I'm vaguely aware of soft soothing noises and something cool on my forehead and for a moment I'm confused.

Only for a moment, unfortunately.

Confusion would be preferable to being able to remember.

Something stings face and for an instant I wonder what's causing it, before I realise I'm crying.  The soothing noises start up again and I'm awake enough now to recognize Ritsuko's voice.

Funny, I never knew she could be so gentle.

She's lying to me though.  'It's going to be okay, it'll be alright, don't worry Misato . . .'  All lies.  Good old Rits-chan.

Things are never going to be okay ever again.

I think the worst thing is that I know why he did it.  He was so desperate to find something real to hold on to, and in the end this was all he could think of.

How strange is that?  To feel sorry for the person who - I can't think it.  I can't use the actual word.  It's too awful, too ugly.

Ugly is not a word that should be associated with Shinji.  He is - was, I remind myself, *was* - too innocent.

I guess that isn't true anymore.

Is it?

Who's the real victim here?

Who knows?

Darkness.

Light.

Bright light.

Uncomfortably bright light.

I groan and squint around myself like a mole, struggling to bring an arm up to shield my eyes.

"Ugggggghhhh."

"What's wrong Major?"

"The light . . . ugh . . . too bright . . ."  Somehow he manages to interpret my incoherent mumbling.

"Dim the lighting" he says, his voice quiet but firm.  Not sharp the way Ikari's was - the elder Ikari I mean - but authoritative all the same.  S'funny, but authority isn't normally a word I'd use to describe Fuyutsuki Kozue.

I guess everybody's different now.

"How are you Major?  Apart from the obvious, of course."

Amazing that he can sound so calm saying that.  You'd think that the son of the woman he loved doing . . . doing what he did . . . would upset him more.

Maybe he's hiding it.

I give him a bleary, bitter look which, judging by his expression, answers his question thoroughly.

I want nothing else than to go back to sleep and stay there.  But I can't.  I have to know.

I force myself to speak, dreading the answer.

"Shinji?"

Fuyutsuki starts to say something, then stops as he looks at me.  He hesitates.  He was going to lie, I realize.

I don't know what I look like, but I suspect my expression tells him lying would be a bad idea.

Not that the truth is any better, sometimes.

"Shinji died on the way here, Major.  The bullet severed an artery in his thigh and . . . he bled to death in the ambulance."

I curse section 2 for trigger happy bastards.  I know it was just chance, bad luck, whatever.

I still hate it.

He looks more like a grieving man now.  His skin has gone sort of papery looking and he seems sunken somehow, like a day old balloon that the air is leaking out of.

I'm struck by a flash of memory - one of his memories, from when we were all briefly part of a larger whole - his reaction to hearing that Yui was pregnant.  The envy he felt for Gendo.  The bittersweetness of his love for Yui.  The pleasure he took in her happiness.  The sheer joy of knowing that part of her would be passed on to the next generation.

What love he had for her.

Darkness.

Time passes.

I dream, remember.

I'm in my bed at home, trying to sleep.  I turn over for what seems the thousandth time and see Shinji silhouetted in my doorway.  My heart goes out to him.  He's hardly said a word since it happened.

He gave Ritsuko brief, monosyballic answers when she examined him and eventually she threw up her hands in exasperation and said my place couldn't be any worse for his health than the infirmary.

Underneath the humour I could tell she was worried.

After it was over everything was . . . peaceful.

There was still pain, still loss, but I could deal with it.  I understood myself.

It gave me strength.

When Gendo gave up his quest we were freed.

In the end, his failure was humankind's victory.

There's something ironic about that, I suppose.

More memories.

Dreams?

Nightmares.

Shinji.

He was so lonely.  He was the hub of it all, but because of that he could never be part of it.

I wanted to help him.  Wanted so badly for him to be alright.

"Are you okay Shinji?"

Stupid question.

"What do you want."

He just stands there, so terribly still.  Then he speaks, his voice haggard.

"I want . . . I don't want to be alone.  I don't want to be alone, I want to be loved."

My heart broke.

"Come here, Shinji-kun."

He came, and I put my arms around him and soothed him.  Rocked him to sleep like a child.

He just wanted to be close to someone.

I was the only one left.

Asuka silent, unwaking, like the princess in that gaijin fairy tale.

Rei gone, vanished, discorporated.  Her soul . . .

Did she have a soul?

If she did, it's gone now.

And his father . . . Shinji finally knew beyond all doubt how his father felt about him.  All the illusions he'd protected himself with were stripped away.

Gendo didn't come back.

Even Shinji knew what that meant.

He didn't have any room in his heart for anyone but Yui.

How could she love a man like that anyway?  She'd have saved us all a lot of trouble if she'd just chosen Fuyutsuki instead.

I sense something.

A stirring.

Shock.

Reflection.

Acceptance.

Peace.

Joy.

"Misato, um, look I, I-don't-know-how-to-tell-you-this."

I've never heard Ritsuko sound so nervous.  So . . . scared.

A pause.

It's sweet of her to worry, unnecessary though it is.

"You're pregnant."

Silence on my part.  What can I say?

I can hardly tell her that I already know.

Oh, she's speaking again.

"Third impact - when everyone was reborn you - your body was healed.  You can, well, I guess I don't have to say it.  So when Shinji . . ."

She trails off.  I'm so detached, I can actually feel sorry for her.  It must be a nightmare having to deliver this kind of news.

"I can perform an abortion as soon as . . . what?  Misato . . . you can't.  By the Kami Misato.  Are.  You.  INSANE!?"

Ritsuko sounds a little shocked.  Well, more than a little.  I guess that's not surprising really, considering I started shaking my head the moment she mentioned an abortion.

I can see she's trying to get her head around it.

She's failing miserably.

It would almost be funny, if I didn't have so much else to think about.

"I . . . we'll talk about it tomorrow."

Ritsuko needs to get more sleep.  She sounds awfully tired.

"Maybe you'll feel differently when you've had some time to think things through."

I won't.

Not that I'm going to keep the baby.  Oh kami no . .

It would be too much . . . to see his face again . . .

Even an echo of it.

He deserves to have something of him live on.  I want something of him to live on.  Maybe this time the best part of him will have a chance.

I hope the child has his eyes.


	2. Author's Notes

Author's Notes

I've taken the original author's notes for Hurt off ff.net for two reasons. First, they're not really relevant anymore since the circumstances which motivated me to write Hurt no longer exist (and a certain so-called author had his stories taken down). The story is perfectly capable of standing on its own. Second, the new rules ff.net has about story chapters being used solely for author's notes more or less forbid giving the little essay that was formerly here it's own chapter. I've left this filler in place of it instead of replacing it with Hurt - Old Wounds to preserve the reviews I got that were solely for the rant that used to be here. They make interesting reading and I wanted them kept intact and separate from whatever response Hurt - Old Wounds receives. If you want to read the original author's notes for Hurt you can e-mail me and I'll send you a copy.


	3. Hurt Old Wounds

Hurt - Old Wounds 

My name is Itashi Midori. Or should that be Katsuragi Midori? Or Ikari Midori?

I don't know.

I turned eighteen a few months ago. That's important, because it meant I could finally access my adoption records without having to get parental consent.

This was a pretty big deal for me. Most of my life I've wondered about who I am. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents - my adoptive parents that is - but I've always wanted to know where I _really_ came from.

Don't all adopted kids feel this way?

I guess it comes down to the question of how I came to exist. Don't misunderstand - I know the facts of life. When a man and a woman love each other very much, etc, etc, etc. I learnt about it in bio at school too. Thing is, none of that answers _my_ questions. Did my parents love each other? Did my mother have a one night stand and give me up because she was ashamed? Was I meant to be? Am I an accident? Was it easy for my mother to give me up? Was it hard? Did my father even know?

What are the circumstances that led to my conception? How did I come to be?

I've known I was adopted for a long time. When you're a kid you don't think too much about that stuff, but you begin to notice as you get older. In my case it was kinda obvious. When they're young kids all look alike, up to a point (I once read an article that said the reason babies all look the same is so fathers can't tell if they've been cuckolded - it's supposed to be some kind of leftover survival mechanism meant to make sure all babies got the care they needed) but as they age they grow into real people and the differences become noticeable.

I have deep blue eyes, elegant features and long, naturally silky black hair that's so dark it seems to have purple highlights when the light hits it a certain way. Both my parents have brown eyes and brown hair - they're homely, basically. I'm not vain about my appearance but the fact is more than one boy has called me beautiful.

I guess you could put it down to recessive genes and like I said, you don't worry about that stuff when you're a kid. But you start to notice when you get older. I noticed that Yuri looked just like her mother. I noticed that Yoshi looked just like his dad.

I noticed that I didn't look like either of my parents at _all_.

That made me different - and kids notice things like that

I found out when I was ten years old. It was mother's day at school and my mother was there, along with everyone else's. We were all doing some kind of construction project, I don't remember what. Then a girl at the next table whispered to her friend 'I bet you she's adopted.'

For a second it didn't mean anything to me. Ikuko, the girl who'd said it, was the class bully and she loved to spread rumours and insult people behind their backs. I looked up at my mother to laugh about it with her . . . and saw her expression.

Her face was frozen in shock.

Slowly she turned to look at me and when her eyes met mine I _knew_. I just knew. I have never felt older than I did at that moment.

Have you ever suddenly realised something that fits into your experiences so neatly, so perfectly, that you just know instantly it's true? No matter how shocking it might be it's too credible to deny? This was like that for me. My mother took me out of school and drove us home, calling my father on the way and telling him to meet us there.

Looking back I think I might have been in shock, but perhaps not, because I didn't feel numb at all. I felt calm, almost satisfied somehow, as though I'd managed to scratch an itch I hadn't known I'd had. There was a weird kind of contentment in knowing the truth, a subconscious settling of doubts.

In a roundabout kind of way it was lucky that I learnt about my adoption before those doubts could really make themselves known. I can easily imagine what it would have been like if I'd found out later, confronting my parents after an age of uncertainty and wondering. But when you're ten there's a limit to the depth of emotion you can feel, or maybe I should say the complexity of emotion. If I'd been a few years older things might have been very different.

My parents were everything model adoptive parents are meant to be when their child finds out she's adopted. Honest, supportive, sympathetic, understanding . . . and intensely insecure. They told me they didn't know anything about my biological mother. They didn't _want_ to know anything.

They didn't say it, but it didn't take me long to realise that they didn't want me to know either.

My father is sterile.

It's been hard for my parents, I know, not being able to have children of their own, but they've always born it with typical Japanese stoicism.

I think it was doubly frustrating for them that they couldn't contribute to the next generation at a time when the world was desperately underpopulated. All around them their friends were raising families - their own flesh and blood - and they couldn't.

So they adopted.

I was a miracle. They've never come out and said it but when they told me about my being adopted the joy they'd felt at the time, the relief, was inherent in their every word. It showed in my upbringing too. They spoilt me terribly. Not with toys and sweets and indulgences, but with love. Few children can have known, growing up, that they were loved with the sureness that I did. My parents hugged me and sang me to sleep and cared for me when I was sick and cheered me up when I was sad and I always, always knew that I was the most important thing in the world to them without having to be told.

The flip side of the coin is that few children can have had parents more possessive than mine. I'm their little miracle all right, but it means they're awfully scared of losing me. And I guess that to them my biological mother was a threat.

Finding my birth parents was the one thing my parents and I really disagreed about. I first asked them about it when I was twelve and in the silence that followed you could hear the cicadas chirping. Then they changed the subject. Over the next year I raised the question a few times, only to be ignored or told that it was not up for discussion.

It was the only thing that I ever truly fought about with my parents.

After awhile it became a taboo subject. This was a new experience for me; not being able to discuss something with my parents. I'll admit it ate at me a little, having questions that I wasn't allowed to ask and knowing there were answers I couldn't to look for.

Then . . . I grew up. I passed my exams, got into college, moved out of home and into a boarding house . . . and finally I could begin my search. I hadn't expected it to be easy, exactly, but I knew my adoption had been arranged through official channels, not privately, so I'd assumed once I contacted the relevant department I could learn a few things from them fairly quickly.

Wrong.

I ran head first into a spider's web of red tape. There were days when it seemed like the entire bureaucracy of the Japanese government existed for no other reason than to drive me insane. They even mentioned something about 'state secrets.' But I persisted.

I cajoled.

I complained.

I wrote annoying letters.

I would show up in the morning, make my enquiries, get rebuffed and then haunt the waiting room of wherever I happened to be while behaving in a manner as irritating as possible.

I was generally obnoxious, in other words.

Finally, suddenly, something gave. I don't know what happened but one day when I showed up some official in a sharp suit showed up and ushered me into his office, all the while stubbornly refusing to answer my questions.

"Well now, Miss Itashi, it seems you've been making rather a nuisance of yourself lately."

I just sat there and gave him a disbelieving look. I was concentrating too hard on not venting all my accumulated fury on him to make polite conversation. After a moment he shrugged and continued.

"I can understand-"

"NO" I broke in harshly "you damn well can't! I've been wondering about this for half my life and when I finally get the chance to find some answers you bastards won't give them to me!"

I kept on like that for awhile, cursing and complaining, but eventually I wound down. He waited for a minute to see if I'd stopped and when he decided I had he continued.

"You're entitled to be angry, Miss Itashi, but the situation is more complicated than you realise."

He held up a hand to forestall my response. I subsided, out of curiosity if nothing else. I had a feeling I was finally going to learn something and I didn't want to jeopardize it.

He picked up a manilla envelope and laid it on the desk in front of me.

"Inside that envelope you will find all the details of your adoption we are prepared to giveyou. Be advised, any further attempts on your part to obtain information will be unsuccessful and may result in legal action being taken against you under the Second Impact Classified Information Act."

I think that's when my jaw dropped. The next thing I remember is being back out in the foyer with the envelope clutched to my chest.

I rode the train back to my lodgings in a daze. I felt . . . I can't quite explain it. My feelings were a mix of joy and dread - I felt like a little girl on a Christmas Eve and I felt as though I were on my way to the funeral of a loved one.

As it turned out, my anticipation wasn't entirely justified.

With hindsight, it's obvious that I had some romantic notion that my adoption papers would magically reveal the truth about my birth and lead me to my biological parents.

It was stupid of me to be disappointed, yet I couldn't help but feel a little depressed when I opened the envelope and removed a single sheet of paper that contained a few sparse facts.

Name: Katsuragi Midori.

Date of birth: June 15, 2015.

Date of adoption: July 18, 2015.

Mother: Katsuragi Misato, Age 28. Born, December 8, 1986.

Father: Ikari Shinji, Age 14. Born, June 6, 2000. Deceased, October 2, 2014.

Is that _all_?

That was my first thought.

In my disappointment it took a few seconds to realise that the information was _seriously_ weird.

My father had been a fourteen year old - younger than I was now, and I was still a virgin.

By the time I was born he was dead.

Hold on - if he died on the second of October and I was born in June the next year then he must have died . . .

Oh shit. This . . . it cast things in a new light.

What the hell is going on here? I wondered.

Suddenly I was furious. I'd waited for so long and this was all I got? More fucking questions!? I jumped to my feet and spun around, full of anger that I didn't know how to vent.

I screamed.

I threw my books against the walls.

I smashed my reading lamp on the floor and finished up by kicking a hole in the door to my room.

My landlady threw a fit - and I had to pay for the repairs.

It didn't take me long to get over my anger. Once I'd calmed I sat down on my futon to think.

Okay. I had names and dates. It wasn't much, but it was a starting place. I brightened as I realised that the bureaucrat, whoever he was, had given me more than he realised. In a society as regimented as ours it's not hard to track a person by their name.

I had questions too. Not that this was a new experience for me, but these were _new_ questions, ones that I'd never expected to be asking. Had my father done something to my mother? Had he hurt her?

For the first time I wasn't sure if I wanted to know the answers.

But hey, I could hardly give up now.

I'm taking CompSci as a minor but I'm no hacker.

Fortunately I have a friend who is.

Miho's a good friend - her twisted sense of humour and weird outfits notwithstanding - and her technical skills are _scary_. It seems like she's always hacking into this company or that government branch. I worry about her getting caught, but right now I needed her expertise.

"You want me to _what_?"

"Come on, it can't be that hard" I wheedled.

Miho raised one narrow eyebrow in response.

"It's not. Social services are _easy_. It's scandalous how little protection people's personal details have. The weird bit is that _you're_ asking me to do this. What's this about anyway?"

"That's kinda personal."

"Oh no you don't, Mi-chan. If you want me to hack into a government department's records and track this Katsuragi Misato down you're sure as hell going to tell me why."

"Why the fuss? I thought you just said it was easy to do?"

"It is. What I'm worried about is why you're so interested in this woman. I'm not going to do this unless I know what I'm getting into."

I sighed mentally. Miho had a point. It was a little unfair to expect her to help me out without knowing what's going on. And since Katsuragi Misato wasn't listed in any phone book - another little mystery, that - this was my only option.

Well, there was no easy way to say this so I decided to just spit it out.

"She's my birth mother."

It was worth revealing that just to see the expression on Miho's face.

In the end she was happy to help. The romantic aspect of it seemed to appeal to her. She made me promise to tell her how it went. Much to my surprise, I agreed.

I'll need to talk to someone about this, I guess, and my parents aren't really a viable option.

And that brings me to my current situation, loitering across the street from a nondescript single story house in the outer suburbs of Tokyo 3 - the address given in Katsuragi Misato's social service details. I'm not afraid to walk across the street and knock on her door, but there's something I have to do first.

There's a public telephone down the street.

"Hello, Itashi residence."

"Hi mom."

"Midori! It's so nice to hear your voice! How are you? You haven't called in a fortnight, your father and I were a little worried."

How the hell am I going to tell her? I know how she's going to take it. But . . . I can't hide this from her. Well, I guess there's no way to sugar coat it.

"I found her."

Silence. Absolute silence.

"Oh Mi-chan. Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean-"

"I have to do this mom. I know you don't want me to but . . . I just have to."

And then she surprises me.

"I know sweetheart."

"I realise you - what did you say?"

"Your father and I knew this would happen. We just didn't want you to rush into anything."

"Mom . . ."

"I know you have to do this Midori, I just . . ."

It's a cliché, but under the circumstances I have to say it.

"I love you mom. Dad too. Nothing's going to change that. I just want . . . I just want to know _why_."

More silence.

"Goodbye mom" I say heavily.

There's a long pause at the other end before she replies.

"Goodbye sweetheart. I hope . . . you find what you're looking for."

Then she hangs up.

It hurts her that I'm doing this, I know. I think she thinks that this is a rejection of her somehow, that my search for my biological mother says she wasn't good enough, or isn't enough, or something. Maybe after I meet this woman I'll be able to explain it better.

I want the whole story of my life. The woman who raised me, much as I love her, does not have it.

I exit the phone booth with my head bowed, more than a little depressed by the conversation I've just had. So I don't see the woman walking down the street and I plough right into her.

"Ooof."

"Oh my god I'm so sorry! I really wasn't looking where I was going. I'm so sorry."

She waves me off.

"Don't . . . worry . . . about . . . it . . ."

The woman's voice trails off as she focuses on my face, staring at me in shocked disbelief.

"Rei?" she asks me in amazement.

Before I can frame a response she seems to catch herself and gives her head a little shake.

"I'm sorry" she tells me briskly, "for a moment there I mistook you for someone . . . I mistook you for someone else. Goodbye"

Something's wrong here. This woman looks like she's seen a ghost. She turns and begins to walk away, rapidly picking up speed as she notices I'm coming after her. The way her voice trailed off like that was eerie. Who do I remind her of? For a moment she seemed to recognize me, or at least she certainly thought she did . . .

Wait.

Could she be?

Thoughts and ideas are coming together in my head faster than I can recognize them, but on some level I intuit that if a stranger can recognize me it might be because she knows someone just like me - someone I'm related to. It seems my body has already realised this, because without even realising it I've started running after her as she hurries away.

I'm not the least bit surprised to see that the house she's heading for is the address given in Katsuragi Misato's social service details.

She sees me approaching as she places her key in the door.

"Look" she says, her voice oddly strained and desperate sounding "I don't know who you are but-"

"I'm Midori."

She stops. I know that my first name was given me by my mother, which is why it's the only name I give.

She recognises it.

Then I start to recognise _her_.

_That's my hair!_ I realise suddenly. _That's my hair on another person!_ And it's true. It has faint traces of grey and the ends are fraying but she has my hair. No, wait, that's not right, I have her hair! The realisation causes me to feel an inexplicable sense of connection to the woman. It's an exultant feeling. This is the woman who gave you up, I try to remind myself. She gave you up eighteen years ago - she didn't want to raise you.

In truth, I've never been antagonistic towards my biological mother, even when she was a concept to me rather than an actual person with a name and a face, but this sudden, surging, instantaneous sense of connection I have with her feels like a betrayal to my parents. I certainly didn't expect to feel like this when I met her. She's a stranger to me.

But how can I not feel this way? Now that I'm looking I notice all sorts of similarities.

I have her walk, her voice and it seems I have her to thank for the shape of my body.

_This is where you came from_ whispers something deep inside me.

"You're my _mother_" I say, and it doesn't come out the way I always thought it would.

I sound desperate, almost.

Pleading.

Awed.

Her face goes blank and for a moment I think she's going to slam the door in my face.

She doesn't.

The way she looks at me . . . fear, longing, confusion, amazement . . . all mixed up together.

Who do I remind her of?

There's something akin to love in her eyes.

So why did she give me up?

"Oh god."

Katsuragi Misato - _my mother_ - slumps against the doorway of the house looking as though the life has been drained completely out of her.

"Oh god" she says again and I just stand there, uncertain, overwhelmed and nervous as she begins to sob. Now that I've arrived at this point what do I do? I can't quite believe that I'm actually here.

I suppose this must happen to people all the time: They focus on one goal and then when they attain it they have no idea what comes next.

What does come next?

The answers I want?

The expression on my mother's face suggests they may be worse than I thought. Something unpleasant squirms in my stomach, but I ignore it.

I need to know.

Eventually Misato - somewhere in between sobs she tells me to call her that - gathers herself and goes inside, gesturing for me to follow. I trail after her into an unconventionally decorated lounge room - a strange but comfortable mix of Eastern and Western furniture - and sit down in a chair opposite the couch Misato has collapsed onto.

I don't say anything. I have the strangest sensation of a great weight pressing down on my chest, trapping everything I want to say beneath it.

"Were you happy?" Misato asks, out of the blue.

"I . . . well, yeah. My parents are . . . they're good people" I finish lamely.

The ghost of a smile crosses Misato's face.

"That's good" she murmurs to herself.

Silence.

Misato stares at the floor for a few minutes before she begins to speak, uttering each word carefully, as though the words spilling out of her are razor edged and must be spoken with care lest they tear her tongue apart as she speaks them.

"I couldn't have kept you. It . . . it hurt too much. You were . . . a reminder."

I am completely silent. What could I say?

"You were so beautiful when you were born. Even the nurses commented on it. Most babies are all red and squealing but you . . . just weren't. The way you looked surprised me. I guess it shouldn't have but . . . when I was pregnant with you I just didn't think about it. Do you know how you can be so focused on something that you forget about all other things connected to it?"

I nod mutely. My presence here is a case in point.

"All I could think about was your birth. Not what you'd look like, not if you'd be healthy, not what would happen to you . . . just . . . your being born."

"I wanted you to be born so badly that I couldn't think about anything else. It was important to me. You were meant to be a continuance - part of Shinji living on. Then you were born and . . . you looked so much like her. I was so stupid not to expect it."

Misato is obviously talking to herself but I can't resist the question.

"Who do I look like? Who's Rei?"

A strangled sound that's too pained to be called a laugh issues from Misato's throat.

"She'd have been . . . your aunt, I guess. Near enough anyway. She died before you were born."

"Oh."

More silence. Eventually I can't stand it any longer.

"What happened? How was I . . . my father - my _biological_ father . . . he died when I . . . _tell me what happened!_"

I don't make much sense, but somehow Misato understands. Maybe she already knew what I wanted to know.

"Shinji - your father - died the night you were conceived."

"He was . . . he was shot."

"What?" I can barely utter that single word.

"You heard me." She replies in a voice as soft as my own. Seeing the expression on my face she gives out another strangled not-quite-a-laugh.

"Let me start from the beginning" she says, sounding calmer suddenly, as though the prospect of going back to the start is somehow soothing.

"Let me start from the beginning" she says again, her voice firming even more, "because the only way I can explain what happened is to tell you everything that led to it."

Then my mother - how strange to call this life worn woman by that title - begins to tell me about my father. Slowly at first, her voice sometimes breaking, but gradually she gains momentum and stories, anecdotes, descriptions fall steadily from her lips.

I know about the Angels of course - everybody does - but, my father an Eva pilot? It seems . . . well . . . almost corny. Too much like a bad soap opera.

That impression fades as Misato continues to speak of him.

He was brave, kind, insecure, gentle, uncertain, sometimes determined, often weak-willed but so absolutely unwilling to hurt anyone.

He played the cello.

He was a good cook.

He was a naïve man-child of whom the impossible was asked and somehow he faced the challenge with more success than he had any right to.

Instrumentality.

Soul wrenching loneliness.

And finally Misato tells me: "You have his eyes."

I guess I have two families now - or maybe just more family than most people.

I think I can live with that.

The girl sitting across from me - _your daughter_ a voice in the back of my head insists - looks stunned. I can sympathise. I think it will take a while for the reality of the situation to sink in. There still are times when I have trouble accepting everything that happened - and I was there.

And there are some things I will never be able to accept at all.

It's strange but . . . I feel better. Lighter. I think I'd forgotten all the good memories, all the breakfasts Shinji cooked and all the times I teased him. Even more precious, the few times he teased me _back_.

It was those memories, after all, that caused me to keep Midori in the first place.

Misato actually waves goodbye as I walk away from her home. I think talking to me was good for her.

I think it was good for me too.

I'm going to see her again soon.

We have a lot to talk about - I've barely gotten to know my father yet.

I hope to get to know him better.

Author's Notes 

Hurt was never meant to have a sequel. Reading Hurt it's easy to see that it's meant to stand by itself - and oneshot darkfics tend not to encourage a continuance. But my oneshots have a habit of getting away from me and turning into series, and Hurt proved to be no exception. I have a penchant for stories where people are separated and then reunited and that, combined with a tiny niggling thought I had after I finished Hurt that Misato's child might try to track her down one day, is what led to this. I'm a little unsure of it as a story, mostly because it has little to do with many of the core elements of Eva, but I feel it rounds off Hurt quite nicely as a kind of expansion of that story's basic theme; that sometimes great joy can be born out of great tragedy. Come to think of it, I suppose it is relevant to Eva after all.

And yes, since Midori's ancestry makes her Ikari Yui's granddaughter, she does look a lot like Rei.


End file.
